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Take That, Franklin Cross!
Uptown San Francisco This part of San Francisco is one of the few areas left mostly untouched by the weather of the last decade. The steep, curving roads are still lined with beautiful old houses, some of them almost a century old. Flower pots grace the roadsides and are cultivated meticulously. Some of the streets even show the old brick roads underneath. Occasionally, you see one of the famous cable cars pass you down the streets, and people hop on and off of them at random. Fisherman's Wharf is visible in the distance, and people will give you directions to Lombard Street if you ask. The scent of the flowers mingles with the smell of fresh-baked sourdough and the slight fish scent from the Wharf. A weathered old man passes you with a fruit cart. It's covered with fresh strawberries, oranges, bananas, and other tasty items. "Hi, Andi!" one of the guards says as they let her through. They do go through her stuff, briefly appraising a certain iPod, but since they aren't expecting shenanigans it's just a cursory examination. She manages to find her way down into the lab without much fuss, though while she's preparing her tea two scientists are arguing about something. "Look, I just don't understand why we have to piss off the Autobots so much," one of them says. "They're our allies and we're distancing ourselves from them for no reason." "Hey, those damn Autobots have had plenty of chances to end this stupid war," the other says. "Cross can win it without them." "Oh, for--you don't even know that!" And on and on. Seems there may be a debate in the ranks... Perceptor has been absorbed in developing a countermeasure to Cross' new superweapon lately, and he's basically got it in spades but he hasn't yet had a chance to test it on an actual bit of the supposed interdimensionally-existing crystal--which is a -fairly- important part of validating the hypothesis behind the prototype he's built, to say the least. He feels slightly guilty about using Lassiter the way he has, especially knowing the kind of danger this attempt would place her in but...he has convinced himself that it's for the best. And so, he transmits a single message to phone, wishing her luck in bringing home the 'lovely piece of jewelry' she has had her eye on lately... But beyond that he can only wait and hope for success. The less communication between himself and her during her visit to the facility, the better. Andi Lassiter is quiet for a moment before quips aside to the other two scientists, "Whether he can or can't is still up for debate. What I /can/ say for sure is that Cross wouldn't get anywhere without /us/, The two scientists glance at Andi, then each other before raising their coffee cups to her. "Yeah, I guess we can drink to that," the pro-Autobot one (let's call him Tim) says. "Well, still," says Jack, the anti-Autobot one, "Guy is pretty smart..." Meanwhile, Andi's desk doesn't seem to have been disturbed in her absence. Even her stapler is where it ought to be. They take that stuff seriously. Andi Lassiter seems unconcerned by the condition of her desk, except to take the previous day's page off of the calendar. "Hey, Tim? Do you want a flower to put in your origami zoo?" She opens the bottom drawer of her desk and settles her bag inside, but not before reaching in and fiddling with one of the devices in a pocket. She puts on a bluetooth headset (sometimes the old tech is the most reliable) then closes the drawer and starts her usual morning routine. "Oh, hey, Jack," she calls out, pulling one ear bud back out. "Did you get the results from yesterday?" Jack stares at Tim. "You have an origami zoo?" Tim frowns. "It's a hobby, alright! And yes, I'd like that, Andi, thanks." "Yeah, anyway," Jack says, "Unfortunately I didn't. These freaky crystals blew my equipment. I'm ordered some replacement parts, I'm just waiting on them. Damn things, they don't follow the laws of physics!" Andi Lassiter takes a moment to fold the page from the calendar into a tulip flower, then pulls a sheet from the back of the calendar to make a stem for the tulip. "Want me to take a crack at them again, Jack?" She steps over toward Tim's desk and offers him the completed tulip. Tim takes the tulip with a smile. "Thanks!" Jack sighs. "Yeah, sure, why not. You might have better luck. Hope I didn't damage those crystals. They can grow more but it takes time. And that Dr. Kafflin keeps going on about how we're sucking matter into another dimension every time we make one. That guy needs help." Andi Lassiter smiles and nods to Tim, then returns to her desk to dig through her bag again, pocketing her phone and iPod. "Go easy on Kafflin. I get the feeling he's had a rough time. I'm ready to go tinker with those crystals some more whenever you are." Jack shrugs. "Alright, well..." He stands up from his desk, pointing at the machinery on it. It doesn't look outwardly damaged, but he doesn't seem to think it'll work. "Lemme... get the crystal out..." He opens a little copper case on top of the machine, pulling a crystal out. "Oh, damn, it's burnt." He rubs at the crystal with a thumb. "Gaaaahhhh." Jack sighs, looking at the crystal. "Yeah, thought maybe it was the machine that broke, but... maybe I pushed the crystal too hard?" "You got to set up your cooling system properly, Jack, or it'll just burn out again!" Tim says. Jack rolls his eyes, handing over the burnt crystal. Andi Lassiter take the burnt crystal, and swaps it out for the one she had there in storage. "Okay. Be careful with it, I don't want to have explain why I killed mine." Then something occurs to her. "Hey, what test were you trying when the crystal went poof?" Jack thinks. "Uh... was trying a test with a little bit of Cybertronian powder. Just tried to up the voltage a bit but I think I overdid it. Buuut yeah, don't worry, I'll be more careful with this one." He places the crystal into the machine, and begins to plug it in. Andi Lassiter nods as she watches Jack set the unburnt crystal into the machine, then steps to one side to monitor the readouts. "Just so you know, Jack, I was really tempted to make a Back to the Future joke there, but I opted to spare you." Jack sighs, shaking his head. "Thanks. Man, this hasn't been my day. Oh, hey, I was right. The machine works." The readout provides a list of detailed information as the machine vaporizes a small amount of powderized Cybertronian metal inside a glass cube mounted on it. "Yeah, we've been trying to improve the power output on these crystals without blowing them out but it's been a challenge." Andi Lassiter watches the results this time, reaching into her pocket to tap at one of the devices there. Maybe skipping a song on her ipod? Maybe alerting Perceptor to something? Who knows. "How much of an increase were you working on last time? Ten percent?" Jack grimaces. "Ahh... well... fifty percent." "*Fifty?*" Tim says. "Hey, don't start with me!" Jack snaps. "You know how Cross is. He wants more results. Says he's 'taking things to the next level.' I thought we already did!" Andi Lassiter just smiles at the two men. "Okay, let's go a little slower then. Try a five percent increase." She makes a mental note of the results of the first run through. "Oh, hey, did either of you hear if we'd get a chance to play with one of the weapons directly? Or are we stuck prodding at these crystals?" Jack does so, upping the voltage a little bit. He checks the readout. "Hmmm... stable so far. Yeah, no weapon prototypes just yet. Cross seems to reserve them for himself, mostly and... I hear, some select group of trusted scientists that are really close to him. Occasionally people get pulled away from these experiments to work on the weapons, I guess if they check out or prove themselves. I dunno, I just work here." Andi Lassiter hms. "Well. Then I guess we can't help determine if the weapons themselves can be improved upon. Try increasing by another five percent. Slowly." Jack does so, increasing by another five percent. "Okay, still stable... starting to heat up, but it's not a problem just yet. Yeah, damn shame, I got some ideas for this thing. Why are we only focusing on Cybertronian alloys? This crystal has so many applications! I can't even name them all." Andi Lassiter says, "Maybe we'll get to soon. I, for one, want to wait until we have proper containment. I reach through the prelims, and some of the radiation types they noted... well, I don't feel pulling a Bruce Banner any time soon." She makes a note of the current readouts, then adds, "Okay, let's go slower now. Add two percent." Jack frowns. "Two percent? I dunno, we're making good progress... but okay." He increases output by two percent. "Still stable, temperature's climbing a little, but we're still good so far. Ehh, I think we can push it little harder, though, can't we?" Andi Lassiter looks at Jack. "And kill this crystal too? I'd rather not take chances and end up like some of the scientific teams that played with A-bomb cores." Jack sighs, his fingers on the dial. He's tempted to tweak it to the right some more... "Oh, dammit, you're right. Still! You've gotten the memos too, right? 'More progress more progress! Increase efficiency! Andi Lassiter smiles up at Jack slyly. "Why do you think my computer's delete key is as shiny as the space bar?" She watches the readouts some more. "Bring it up to an even twenty five percent above original. I don't think we should push it beyond that, though." Jack nods. "Ha! Yeah. Well, if I had the guts to delete my memos I'd it all the time." He complies, and eyes the readout. "Oh. No wonder I blew the last one out, it's starting to overheat. Ha! But I think we can run it for just a bit longer..." Andi Lassiter says, "Prepare to shut it down in fifteen seconds or if the temperature reaches critical. I haven't been at this for as long as I have by being reckless, Jack." She watches the readings carefully. "Tim, are you still looking into whether or not the crystals' characteristics change with their shapes?" Jack nods, watching the readings closely. "Yes, actually," Tim says. "And what I've found so far is that the area of effect extends outwards from the crystals like the magnetic field of, well, a magnet. But it's harder to define those boundaries. With a magnet I can use iron powder to show the magnetic lines, but with these crystals, well, they... er... mutate objects they interact with, for lack of a better word, so I've got a limited amount of time before the material I'm using to determine the shape of the field is no longer any good." Andi Lassiter turns to look at Tim with her eyebrows raised, then turns back to Jack's experiment in progress. "Shut down in ... Five. Four. Three. Two. One." Jack reaches to shut the machine off, but then... ZRRRRT SPAKKKK! "Oh, damn!" Jack yells, flipping the switch and shutting it down. He winces. "Oh, damn, that did not sound good. I'm... I'm so, so sorry, Andi." He reaches for the copper container... "No, it's still hot!" Tim warns, and Jack jerks his hand away. Andi Lassiter startles and gasps, flinching away from the equipment at the sound. "It's okay, Jack. Just... let it cool before you open it, okay?" She sighs and rubs her forehead with one hand. "Tim, let me see those area of effect fields you were talking about. And what sorts of shapes have you been cutting the crystals to for these tests?" Sighing, Tim nods, pulling out some graph paper he had been drawing on. "Well... mostly diamond shapes for obvious reasons. But here's a star..." He shows a drawing of a star-shape, surrounded by layers of blobby star-like shapes extending beyond it. "As you can see here... the energy fields, from what I've been able to determine, assume a rough facsimile of the shape of the crystal, but they can extend far beyond it. And they seem to go through everything, like gravity. Copper seems to be useful for *directing* it... but..." He makes a worried face. "...I don't think it really contains it completely, either." Andi Lassiter looks concerned by that as well. "And copper is the only thing that even comes close to containing it?" Tim frowns. "Well, some other metals, too. Lead helps. But on the right frequency, this stuff will go right through them, too." He rubs his chin. "God, what are we dealing with, here?" "Hey, job's a job," Jack says, applying a thermometer to the copper container. "Okay, looks like it's cool enough to touch... gonna open it up..." He cracks the container open and sighs. "Ohhh man. Andi, you're not gonna like this, but your crystal just blew to pieces." He plucks a tiny bit out, looking at it, but his grip wasn't terribly tight, so it slips from his fingers and falls under the table. "Oh, dammit! I can't believe I just did that..." Andi Lassiter sighs. "I'll get it." She reaches down for the dropped sliver of crystal, startling when her ipod falls out of her pocket. She scoops up the little device then feels around to locate the shard with the ipod still in her hand. She finds the bit and presses it against the ipod casing, slipping the bit into the subspace pocket the little device is concealing, and keeps feeling around. "Jack, I'm not finding it. It might have gone underneath something down here." She sits back, dropping the ipod back into her pocket. Jack slaps a hand against his head, slumping down into a chair. "Oh, man, they... REALLY want us to keep track of these things. Damn, look, Andi, I'll let them know it was my fault. If I get canned, well, my stupid mistake, right? Damn, how could I let this happen?" Andi Lassiter moves to stand again. "How big a piece was it? They can't get angry if it was just a tiny sliver, can they?" She inwardly hopes a tiny sliver is enough for Perceptor to work with, as there's no way she'd be able to sneak out anything bigger. Jack shakes his head. "Nope, every tiny little speck has to be accounted for. Operational security and all that. I mean, even one little sliver could be used to study the crystal, or try to grow more of them. Maaan... I hope Jesse Ventura isn't right about the conspiracy. Wake up the next morning with a bullet in my head." Andi Lassiter sighs. "Crap. Can we move your entire desk to look for it?" She returns to her desk to put her phone, iPod, and headphones there. "Come on. If we start now, maybe we can find it before lunch time." Jack nods, shoving his desk off to the side. That done, he looks over the exposed area. "Uh... you see it? I don't. Gah." Tim looks about shiftily. "You know... there may be a way we can... replace the missing piece." Andi Lassiter says, "I don't see it either... " She straightens to look at Tim. "Really? How? Look at the rest of it, it's... practially reduced to glitter." Tim says quietly, "Well... I have a bit of the... 'culture' they're using to grow more crystals. We just take a bit of the shard that broke off, dab a little bit of the culture on it, and it'll grow. And that way we could get the crystal back down to its original weight." Jack thinks about it apprehensively. "I dunno... if we get caught..." "It's this or you're screwed anyway, Tim," Jack says. Andi Lassiter looks between the two men. "It's worth a try." Tim nods. "Okay, give me another sliver." Jack provides one, placing it on Tim's table, then, Tim unlocks a cabinet and pulls out a tin canister. He sets it down on the table, and opens it, revealing a gel-like substance within. Using a forceps, he dabs some of the gel onto the sliver, and it begins to grow slightly after a few seconds. "Hm... there, now the weight discrepency won't be so great. You'll be able to explain this more easily, at least." Jack sighs in relief. "Well, better than nothing." He closes up the copper container where Andi's crystal exploded, and takes the crystal from Tim's table and slips it into a small paper envelope. "Yeah, sorry about that again, Andi. Hopefully that'll work." Andi Lassiter nods. "I hope so too. And if nothing else, at least we got the data from the crystal before it shattered." She returns to her desk, then thinks of something. "Hey, can that stuff repair Jack's burnt out crystal too, do you think?" Tim thinks. "Hm. I don't know. I guess we could see what happens. We are scientists, aren't we? So yes, hand it over, please." Andi Lassiter nods and carefully carries the crystal over to Tim's desk. "Let's hope thisi works." Tim smears the stuff delicately over the burnt out crystal, and waits. And waits. And waits some more. "Oh, damn. Well, I guess that whatever we did to this crystal, it disrupted its molecular structure too much to chemically react with the culture. Sorry, Jack." Andi Lassiter smiles and reaches to take the crystal back. "It was worth a try." She carries it back to her desk, careful to keep the stuff on the crystal from touching her skin, then quickly puts on a pair of gloves and uses a clean cloth to wipe the crystal clean. She bundles the cloth inside the gloves as she pulls them inside out to remove them, and drops the entire bundle in her trash can. She'll fish it out later when the two men are otherwise occupied and also stow it in the iPod's subspace pocket. Commercial break followed by Autobot spinny! We transition to... Perceptor's personal laboratory aboard the Ark. Unlike so many of his creative brethren, Perceptor's laboratory is immaculate. The consoles are cleaned and wiped down. Supplies are neatly organised. Everything has its place, and everything is in its place. Even the floors smell lemony fresh. The walls are the same as the rest of the installation, with no obvious personal signs. Perceptor keeps no knickknacks, or at least he does not display them. Behind one of the large cabinets with the Autobot Emblem splashed across its front, he keeps his personal items, such as his Nobel Prizes, awards, commendations, and other things of special importance to him. Perceptor has been sitting in his lab the entire time, waiting nervously and eagerly at the same time for news of success or failure on Andi's part. The eager part is mostly due to his own insatiable thirst for knowledge and the nervous part is what dire consequences Andi may be faced with if she were caught. She was a brilliant human, no doubt, but he was aware that she wasn't trained in intelligence or anything. If she'd been caught...he shook his head. He'd never forgive himself. Andi Lassiter arrives at the Ark after a several-hour drive, an Autobot security mech as her escort and conveyance. She of course send a text message to Perceptor while en route, that said something like, "Picked up new piece from the jewelers. Can't wait for you to see it." Air rushes through the scientist's ventilators in relief when he receives the communication, and when she finally arrives, he immediately turns to greet her, barely able to contain his excitement. "Lassiter...thank Primus you are all right. I was concerned that you may have been caught." Andi Lassiter thanks the security mech then walks toward Percy. "Yeah, I was a bit uneasy for a bit there myself, but no one so much as suspected a thing." She offers the iPod to the scientist. "I hope this thing worked the way it's supposed to." "They must have great trust in you. With good reason, of course." Perceptor replies, and a small hover drone comes to retrieve the iPod from Andi, since it would be rather difficult for someone so much larger to grip something -that- tiny. The drone places the iPod on the workspace in front of the scientist, where the objects stored in the subspace pocket are ejected carefully. He nods, quite satisfied. "Excellent! I see you have also appropriated a portion of the growth solution. You have exceeded my expectations, Ms. Lassiter." he says, smiling. Andi Lassiter smiles back, then beckons the hover drone back over. "Hey there, little buddy. Give me a lift?" She then explains to Perceptor. "It was partly luck, to be honest. One of the other scientists shattered a crystal, and I was able to sneak that little sliver away. And then the other guy pulled out the growth gel, and I was able to get a sample of that on the cloth inside those gloves. I hope there isn't too much foreign matter mixed in." The drone emits a couple of high-pitched clicks and beeps in response, presumably Cybertronian for 'Of course, ma'am' then carries her up near to the workspace where the objects are being examined. Perceptor nods again. "Yes, but you were clever to subtlely take advantage of the opportunities presented to you, which I must commend you for." Another drone whisks the gloves away to be stored for later. Yes, there was quite a bit of foreign matter, but that it wasn't anything Perceptor couldn't handle with simple purification techniques. Simple to him, anyway. As for the little sliver of crystal, that is actually just the right size, as the Autobot scientist had been hoping for an opportunity to test the nanite-manufactured ammunition he had recently designed. And according to the scans he'd just run, the spaces in the lattice structure would be just large enough to allow the null field devices inside. A panel nearby opens, revealing the prototype weapon Perceptor had designed to counter Cross' new project. It doesn't actually look all that interesting on the outside, and is actually quite small, perhaps the size of a standard-issue Autobot pistol. A camera lowers out of the ceiling above, focusing in on the crystal while a holographic display simultaneously activates in front of Andi, showing in great detail the crystalline structure of the little sliver. Andi Lassiter looks at the holographic display and wows faintly. "That's better resolution than I was able to get in my lab." Yes, she has tech envy now. "Now, this weapon will fire a series of nanoscopic null field devices in the general direction of the crystalline structure. I have implemented self-guidance coding, so...ideally they will not miss their targets. The devices will enter the material by travelling between the molecules within the lattice structure, and once they have detected that they have been positioned optimally or satisfactorily, they will activate a null field network, creating a barrier between this dimension and the other. This will, ideally, blockade the energy flow between the mass of the structure existing here and the mass in existence in the other plane, effectively rendering each mass independent of its extra-dimensional counterpart. And, since we have found that this substance," he says, gesturing at the crystal in front of them, "is primarily composed of elements commonly found throughout the galaxy...we should have nothing to fear from it once this connection has been severed." Andi Lassiter nods. "Okay, I'm following you so far." "Excellent." Perceptor nods and turns back to the task at hand. "Very well then, I shall proceed." He fires the weapon at the small crystalline mass, then turns his attention to the viewscreen... Andi Lassiter watches the viewscreen as well. This is what the past several weeks of planning, plotting, scheming, and sneakiness were all for. She even goes so far as to cross her fingers. The little nanodevices work their way inside the crystal, setting up shop in all the little gaps, and apparently setting up the null field just as Perceptor programmed them to. But did it work? Maybe there's only way to know for sure... Well, so far, so good. The devices were functioning the way they were programmed to. But the question was if they were actually effective in accomplishing what Perceptor had set out to do. He taps a few commands into a console, and the drones whizz about, preparing the appropriate equipment to apply an electrical field to the sliver, as well as a test material, which happens to be a rock that is primarily composed of granite, in addition to a containment field around the workspace, in case this didn't work and a dangerous discharge occurred. As soon as everything is set up, he hits execute to power up the field. Andi Lassiter blinks at all of the activity. "Um, Perceptor? Which frequency are you using on that sliver of crystal?" The charge is applied and.... nothing happens! Nothing whatsoever! No freaky radiation, no bizarre side-effects, no one being disintegrated instantly. But is that merely because of the frequency applied?... Perceptor is definitely excited. Even more so than before. -This- is the kind of thing he loves doing best. "The frequency is displayed upon--" he points to one of the many holographic displays in the room, but realizes it's in Cybertronian. "--er..." he keys a couple commands and it is translated into English. "There." He then returns to the terminal, setting up a program to test a series of frequencies from the bottom of the spectrum the machinery was capable of applying all the way to the top. Which is quite a range, of course, since Perceptor himself had designed much of the equipment in this room. There we go. No matter what frequency is used--and Andi should be able to verify that some of them should have worked--the crystal behaves itself. Andi Lassiter has her handheld scanner out. "Percy, it's working. There should be UV rays... Xrays... gamma rays... you're going through all of the really bad for humans ones and it's not emitting any of them." Perceptor is visibly relieved. If this hadn't been effective, spanning the entire spectrum would've been quite dangerous. The field he was using had its limits, especially when it came to unpredictable objects with extra-dimensional properties. "Primus..." he mutters weakly, hardly able to believe that his educated guesses had actually been right. But then he snaps out of it. "Well of course! I had expected it would be effective. It was effective when applied to the phenomenon on Alkor Zephyr, there is no rationale as to why it should not be effective now. It is simply the same principle employed on a much smaller scale.” Andi Lassiter smiles. "Oh, hey, is that effect permanent? Because if not, I know what level of power will burn out or shatter the crystal so it's useless." "Yes, it is permanent...that is, unless somenone finds a way to remove them, since the devices draw energy from the miniaturized portals themselves, simultaneously preventing the energy from flowing into the crystalline mass." It was a concept that he had been working since Alkor Zephyr, but he hadn't had the time to apply it there. Perceptor considers for a moment. "Yes, I would not underestimate Cross' prowess. In which case, equipping the devices with a self-destruct mechanism that will utilize a power level sufficient to destroy not only the null field generators but also the crystal itself would be quite useful." Andi Lassiter nods. "Well, so far as I know the crystals are set to operate... " she explains the voltage used to activate the effects of the crystals. "... and if you increase the power input by more than twenty-five percent, the crystal overheats and either burns out or shatters." She smiles a bit amusedly. "That's how I got that little sliver." Perceptor smiles, amused. "Ah, I see. You are quite clever. I will begin creating the coding for such a mechanism immediately." There is a pause as he starts writing the programming, but then he stops and turns back to Andi, looking more serious. "Ms. Lassiter, I cannot thank you enough for your assistance in this matter. You have performed admirably, and I am extremely grateful for your willingness to risk your own safety for our sake. You have done the Autobots a great favour." Andi Lassiter smiles back at Perceptor. "Hey, anything I can do to make Cross go away I'll do happily. Oh, and I don't know if you heard but Marissa's getting better finally." Perceptor nods, smiling again. "That is excellent news. I am glad to hear it. Perhaps she will replace him at some point in time. Preferably soon." Andi Lassiter says, "I really hope so too. But for now, she's kind of planning a mutiny of sorts. I'll keep you posted if you want." "Oh yes. Please." Perceptor nods again. "However, if rest is necessary, you are well-deserving of it."